SPRINGFIELD - A report recommending that community colleges
preserve their mission as two-year institutions without authority
to offer bachelor's degrees tops the agenda for the Illinois Board
of Higher Education (IBHE). The report, prepared by the Baccalaureate
Access Task Force, has been endorsed by the Illinois Community College
Board (ICCB), which created the study group to explore the issue
of community colleges offering four-year degrees.

The Board of Higher Education will meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday, December
6, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Board will discuss
the Task Force report but not act on its recommendations until its
February meeting in Springfield.

The issue of baccalaureate degrees at community colleges arose
more than a year ago when the Harper College Board of Trustees in
Palatine voted to seek legislative permission for the college to
offer bachelor's degrees in limited fields and under prescribed
circumstances. Both the IBHE and ICCB supported resolutions last
fall urging that no legislation be enacted to change the mission
of community colleges until a study could examine its cost and policy
ramifications.

The Task Force found that only about 16,000 students transfer from
the state's 48 community colleges to four-year institutions, a little
more than half of whom have earned an associate's degree in a baccalaureate-transfer
program. The panel, which included administrators, faculty, and
students from several community colleges, ICCB staff, and representatives
of public universities and the IBHE, noted that there are several
existing mechanisms for community college students to complete bachelor's
degrees, including off-campus university degree-completion programs;
online degree completion; and dual admission/dual enrollment agreements
between community colleges and universities.

The Task Force reported that fourteen states give community colleges
authority to grant bachelor's degrees, mostly in technical fields
without a strong university presence or geographical areas remote
from university programs.

Advantages of this approach, the report stated, include:

enabling a community college to leverage existing programmatic
and capital resources;

permitting a community college to fulfill its mission through
addressing a documented workforce need; and

making the transfer from lower to upper division coursework
seamless for students.

However, the Task Force also enumerated disadvantages to expanding
the role of community colleges, including:

the need for additional state dollars;

long-term impact on mission and structure of the colleges;

diversion of resources from existing programs and services to
baccalaureate programs; and

potential adverse effects on the relationships between community
colleges and senior institutions.

On balance, the Task Force concluded that "community colleges
in Illinois should not be given the authority to award baccalaureate
degrees at this time." If such an approach is considered in
the future, the Task Force added, it should only be "where
it would meet a clearly identified workforce need which cannot be
met through affordable cooperative approaches with baccalaureate-degree
granting institutions."

The Task Force recommended that existing efforts to provide opportunities
for community college students to pursue bachelor's degrees be expanded.
Among its suggestions are: strengthening articulation and transfer
programs, broadening dual admission initiatives, offering baccalaureate
degrees cooperatively or jointly by universities and community colleges
through off-campus and online arrangements, providing financial
incentives such as grants or differential tuition rates to promote
bachelor-completion programs, initiating a "quick response"
baccalaureate access needs analysis and new program approval system,
and creating an extended-credit cooperative articulation model for
selected programs to allow credits beyond an associate's degree
to count toward a bachelor's degree.

The report urges that a baccalaureate completion grant be established
to fund cooperative efforts between universities and community colleges
to broaden opportunities for students to obtain bachelor's degrees.

Board members also will receive the 2005 Statewide Performance
Report, a statistical and evaluative snapshot of Illinois higher
education assessing progress on meeting the policy goals of The
Illinois Commitment, the state's strategic plan for higher education.
The report, the second annual, examines progress and challenges
facing the state and its colleges and universities in a variety
of policy areas. For example, the report notes that the state is
producing an increasing number of graduates at all levels and across
a broad array of programs, thus strengthening the pool of college-educated
individuals to meet workforce needs. But it also points out that
degree production in engineering has been flat, and baccalaureate
degrees in health sciences have been declining. Similarly, the report
reveals that while the proportion of students receiving grant aid
continues to rise, there is a growing gap between the maximum award
under the Monetary Award Program and tuition and fees for all sectors
of higher education.

The Performance Report follows a related report detailing more
than 200 programs, initiatives, and approaches at colleges and universities
that were compiled in the Compendium of Institutional Effective
Practices, which Board members received in October. Four institutions
will highlight practices selected from the Compendium in special
presentations to the Board, including:

Northern Illinois University's effort to ensure freshmen and
transfer students get a full schedule of core-competency and general-education
courses.

Argosy University-Schaumburg's internship program offering correctional
psychology training through the Illinois School of Professional
Psychology at state correctional facilities.

Wabash Valley College's Parenting University, in partnership
with a local school district, that offers adult basic education
classes with a focus on parenting skills for educationally underserved
individuals.

Dominican University's Providing Access to Campus Life is a
strategy to increase the number and diversity of students entering
higher education.

Board members also will hear a presentation by Carol A. Twigg,
President and CEO of The National Center for Academic Transformation,
on ways the National Center helps colleges and universities use
information technology to redesign learning environments to produce
better student outcomes at a reduced cost to the institution.